Data carriers with installed electronic modules are already well-known and used as credit cards, bank cards, cash payment cards and such in a great variety of service sectors, for example cashless money transfer or in the in-house area for access entitlement. With a majority of these data carriers the power is supplied to the electronic module and/or data exchange with external devices in contacting fashion via outer contact surfaces. Since the contact surfaces of the module are exposed in these data carriers they can get dirty, which may lead to poor contacting and thus faulty data transmission between the data carrier and the external device. Furthermore, faulty data transmission can also occur due to faulty positioning of the data carrier and thus of the contact. surfaces in the external device. Finally, data exchange cannot take place between the data carrier and the external device over a relatively great distance, as is desired for some applications. Electronic modules for noncontacting data exchange are therefore also used in data carriers.
EP 376 062, for example, describes such an electronic module with inductive coupling wherein a coil and an integrated circuit are glued to a substrate. The integrated circuit is located in the interior of the coil and is connected electrically thereto by bonding wires. The remaining interior of the coil is filled with a casting compound to protect the sensitive components of the module from mechanical loads, the coil being used as a limiting frame for the casting compound.
Another electronic module with inductive coupling is shown in Wo 93/20537. Here a wound coil is used whose size corresponds substantially to the outside dimensions of the card body. In a flattened corner of the coil a substrate is fixed to the coil by a hot-melt adhesive. The coil ends are glued over a gap in the substrate. The integrated circuit is inserted in the gap in the substrate and connected electrically with the coil ends extending over the gap.
The stated prior art thus requires a separate additional carrier substrate on which the integrated circuit and coil are disposed.